Tucker Carlson's 8 p.m. show on Fox News is the third most popular cable news show in the country, and he's quicklymadeuse of his rising popularity to turn white nationalist narratives into prime-time stories. Carlson's brand has drawn a following of notable white supremacists, anti-Semites, and misogynists, making him a media figurehead among the “alt-right.”

His show has also grabbed the attention of the president. In August, President Donald Trump responded to a fearmongering Carlson segment on “white oppression” in South Africa, stating that he had ordered Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to investigate the issue.

Here is Carlson using language that echoes notable far-right figures:

The figures in this video:

Lana Lokteff: Lokteff runs the white supremacist internet media company Red Ice TV with her husband, Henrik Palmgren. Red Ice TV has hosted extremist Richard Spencer and featured Holocaust denier Kevin MacDonald discussing the “JQ” (Jewish Question). Lokteff and Palmgren took part in the 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, VA. The Daily Beast recently reported that “Red Ice regularly promotes hate against immigrants and Jews, riling up its listeners with claims that white people are ... facing extinction at hands of minority groups.”

Jared Taylor: Taylor is the head of the white nationalist American Renaissance group. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazettereports that Taylor “believes black people are genetically predisposed to lower IQs” than white people and that Black people “are sexually promiscuous because of hyperactive sex drives.” Taylor has appeared on talk shows to attack the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.

Richard Spencer: Spencer coined the term “alt-right” and has described the movement as “an ideology around identity, European identity.” The Anti-Defamation League described Spencer as “a symbol of a new generation of intellectual white supremacists” who “runs a variety of ventures that promote racist ideology.” Spencer was one of the leading forces behind the violent white supremacist and neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, VA, in 2017.

Christopher Cantwell: Cantwell is known as the “Crying Nazi” because of his appearance in a Vice documentary about the Charlottesville rally. The self-described white nationalist used pepper spray on counterprotestors during the event and has since been barred from entering Virginia for five years.

David Duke: Duke is a former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard. The Anti-Defamation League describes Duke as “perhaps America's most well-known racist and anti-Semite.” It says he “promotes anti-Semitic and white supremacist views as the leader of the white supremacist European American Unity and Rights Organization, as a writer of anti-Semitic tracts, and, in recent years, as an international figure who has promoted his anti-Jewish ideology in Europe and the Middle East, devoting particular attention to Russia and the Ukraine.”

Brian Culpepper: Culpepper is a longtime member of the neo-Nazi group National Socialist Movement, acting as the group's public relations officer for a number of years. He was one of the speakers at a 2017 “White Lives Matter” rally in Tennessee.

Mike Enoch: Enoch’s real name is Mike Peinovich. He is the founder of the racist and anti-Semitic website The Right Stuff. He hosts an anti-Semitic podcast called The Daily Shoah. He has said that the core principle of the “alt-right” is “ethno-nationalism, meaning that nations should be as ethnically and racially homogeneous as possible.” He is pictured here giving a Nazi salute.

There has been a massivebacklash following Laura Ingraham's anti-immigrant rant on her Fox News show. Ingraham's arguments are directly reminiscent of arguments made by white supremacists Jared Taylor, Richard Spencer, and David Duke.

Duke, unsurprisingly, was one of the few to endorse what Ingraham said.

Fox News is helping white supremacist Kyle Bristow rehabilitate his white nationalist past by citing him for legal expertise without disclosing Bristow’s racist views, his active role in institutionalizing the “alt-right,” or his recent legal representation of white nationalist Richard Spencer. Bristow’s extremist background should have been clear to the network, as a February Fox story named him as Spencer’s attorney.

In a March 26 FoxNews.com story claiming Stormy Daniels’ lawyer could have implicated himself and his client in a potential crime, Fox included Bristow among the legal experts the network contacted for commentary. Bristow later bragged about his quotes on his Facebook page. From the FoxNews.com report:

As recently as early March, Bristow was not only Richard Spencer's attorney, but also an important actor developing institutions for the “alt-right.” During an earlier guest appearance on the white nationalist propaganda outlet Red Ice TV, he talked about the organization he had founded, the Foundation for the Marketplace of Ideas (FMI), which he called “our” -- referring to the “alt-right” -- “own version of the ACLU.” As reported by the blog Angry White Men, Bristow intended to use FMI to force universities to host white nationalists and allow them to spread their racist ideas via public speaking events.

Bristow’s history of extremism also includes publishing a novel the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) described as “seething with lethal white supremacist revenge fantasies against Jewish professors, Latino and American Indian activists and staffers of a group clearly modeled on the SPLC,” and which his ex-wife called “his personal manifesto.” His second book got an endorsement from prominent white nationalistJared Taylor. Bristow also represented both Spencer and Cameron Padgett, the prominent white nationalist's “booking agent and legal advocate,” in multiple lawsuits against universities, claiming Spencer’s right to free speech was being violated when public universities -- citing security costs -- made it difficult for him to spread his extremism on campus. Bristow's ideological extremism led The Daily Beast’s Mark Potok to describe him as “a hardline racist.”

A day before he was supposed to host a white nationalist-themed conference in Detroit, MI, this month, Bristow announced he was “dropping out of politics” and giving up his position at the helm of FMI. He blamed recent media coverage for his decision, complaining about “recent relentless and unjustifiable vilification” and explaining, “In recent weeks, journalists have published horrifically disparaging articles about me which contain acerbic, offensive, juvenile and regrettable statements I mostly made over a decade ago.” He didn't clarify whether he would still represent Spencer, but the two seemed to remain on good terms, with Spencer referring to Bristow warmly in a March 3 Periscope recording and telling Newsweek the two were “in touch.” Shortly after Bristow’s resignation, his Twitter account -- which used to house his incendiary commentary -- and his foundation’s online presence were scrubbed from the internet.

Fox News has previously, if indirectly, acknowledged Bristow's connections to the “alt-right,” as a February 11 story covering Spencer and threats he made about suing Kent State University cited Bristow as Spencer's lawyer:

Either Fox is willingly aiding this white supremacist in scrubbing his “alt-right” extremist past or, at best, the network is inept at vetting the people it goes to for expertise. Neither is a good look.

A far-right campaign that blames immigrants and refugees for sexual violence in Europe is attempting to ride the coattails of the #MeToo movement. The campaign, apparently launched by German women and promoted by European white supremacists, far-right media figures, and anti-Muslim extremists, is an ethnosexist exploitation of a legitimate movement against gender-based violence and an attempt at normalizing hate against immigrant and refugee communities.

The campaign is known as 120 decibels, a reference to the volume of most pocket alarms carried by some women as a defense against street harassment, and seems to have first appeared on Twitter January 30 in the form of the hashtag #120dB and a video that’s gone viral among far-right and ethnonationalist groups. The movement’s website invites women to join the “resistance” and share their experiences with “imported violence” using the hashtag #120dB.

In the video's subtitles, several women -- purporting to speak for women who were subjected to violence in Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom -- claimed their respective countries “refuse to secure our borders” and “refuse to deport criminals.” They also lamented the European countries’ alleged cover-up of a migrant crime epidemic, saying their governments’ leaders would “rather censor any critique against [them] then taking (sic) us seriously.” The women contend, “Because of your immigration policies, we are facing soon a majority of young men that come from archaic societies with no womens-rights (sic). You knew that and you accepted it.” They called themselves the “daughters of Europa” and promised to call these abuses to account. And they call #120dB “the true #metoo.”

The hashtag and video are beingheavilypromoted by Generation Identity, a self-proclaimed pan-European “Identitarian” movement against the “replacement” of (white) Europeans with migrants. Its Austrian co-founder Martin Sellner uploaded a version of the campaign video with English subtitles around the time #120dB first appeared online; it now has more than 40,000 views.

The hashtag #120dB has since garnered attention from English-speaking audiences more widely -- including from the American anti-Muslim commentator Pamela Geller; the founder of a group called “Resistance Against Islamic Radicals,” Amy Mek, anti-immigrant pundit Ann Coulter; and contributors to the Canadian "alt-right" media outlet Rebel Media, Tommy Robinson and Lucy Brown.

The campaign has also garnered attention from far-right activists and trolls obsessed with a mythical crime wave in Europe. Most notably, Breitbart London author Chris Tomlinson penned a February 1 article on the subject and has tweeted the hashtag #120dB 15 times as of this writing. In another tweet, Tomlinson used the hashtag to promote a Breitbart article he wrote about the late January murder of Pamela Mastropieto, an 18-year-old Italian, woman by a Nigerian man. On Saturday, a far-right extremist was arrested in connection with a racially-motivated shooting rampage in the central Italian city of Macerata, apparently in retaliation for her brutal killing. After the attack, far-right 4-chan trolls defended the suspected gunman Luca Traini, and one post called for followers to hang posters around Italy that read, "I was killed by open borders," a photo of the woman, and a reference to the hashtag #120dB.

Media Matters has documented Breitbart’s -- and, in particular, Tomlinson’s -- obsession with a nonexistent European crime wave, especially in Sweden. Two of Breitbart’s favorite tropes -- both employed by #120dB -- are the portrayal of immigrant men (particularly Muslims) as predisposed toward sexual violence, and the baseless accusation that law enforcement is involved in a cover-up of violent crime by immigrant populations.

Meanwhile, Lana Lokteff, the "alt-right" co-host with her Swedish husband of Red Ice TV, a media company affiliated with white nationalist Richard Spencer’s AltRight Corporation, plans to interview the women of #120dB this week. Lokteff has previously criticized women who have spoken out against disgraced Hollywood mogul and sexual predator Harvey Weinstein, calling one of his accusers, Rose McGowan, “awful.”

During a meeting on immigration policy in the Oval Office, President Donald Trump reportedly questioned the United States’ policy of accepting immigrants from, what he said, were “shithole countries,” such as Haiti, El Salvador, and African nations. In the aftermath of the president’s racist remarks, many in right-wing media rallied around him to defend his comments.

Right-wing media reacted in disgust to the historic November 7 win by Danica Roem -- one of a number of openly transgender candidates, including Andrea Jenkins in Minnesota, to take races that day. Anti-LGBTQ websites The Federalist and LifeSite News joined a handful of white nationalists in attacking Roem, a transgender woman who is set to be the first openly transgender candidate elected and seated in a state legislature in U.S. history, after her win in Virginia. Right-wing figures called her "transgendered" and a man, compared her to a Nazi, and said her “claim to fame is transgenderism.”

Since white nationalist Richard Spencer’s October 19 speech at the University of Florida, there has only been one mention across the three major cable news networks -- CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News -- that three of Spencer’s supporters were charged with attempted homicide for allegedly shooting at counterprotesters outside the event.

NBCNews.com reported that three of Spencer’s apparent neo-Nazi supporters -- Tyler Tenbrink, William Fears, and Colton Fears -- were arrested outside of Spencer’s speech, after one of them fired “one shot, which hit a nearby building” after the others in the car urged him “to shoot at the protesters.” NBC News also noted that the supporters “displayed Nazi salutes and shouted chants about Hitler.”

Across the three cable networks, MSNBC’s AM Joy was the only program that mentioned that the Spencer supporters were arrested after they “literally fired shots at anti-fascist protesters.” During the segment, ProPublica reporter A.C. Thompson noted that he had interviewed Tenbrink after his involvement in the Charlottesville rally, and that Tenbrink told Thompson, “‘I hate the leftists. The leftists are evil. They’re bringing degeneracy to our country. … I’m fighting against multiculturalism, the press of multiculturalism on Western society, and I’m fighting for my children.’” Thompson added, “Fast forward to this week, he shows up in Florida at the Richard Spencer event, and according to police, opens fire on counterprotesters with a handgun.”

Terrorism perpetrated by right-wing extremists and white nationalists is often undercovered in the media. When the Trump administration released a list of supposed “underreported” terror attacks, it neglected to include numerous instances of terror and killings committed by white nationalists. In fact, white extremists are currently more dangerous than other extremist groups in the United States. As Foreign Policyreported in August, “the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security in May warned that white supremacist groups had already carried out more attacks than any other domestic extremist group over the past 16 years and were likely to carry out more attacks over the next year”

Methodology

Media Matters searched SnapStream transcripts for CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News Channel from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. from Thursday, October 19, the day of Spencer’s rally, through Saturday, October 21, and between 6 a.m. and 12 p.m. on Sunday, October 22, for the terms “Spencer,” “Tenbrink,” “Fears,” "white nationalist," "white supremacist," "Florida," or variations of the term “shot” and “shoot.”

Billed as an exclusive "rare" interview, an NBC affiliate in Charlottesville, VA, aired a segment with well-known white nationalist Richard Spencer without highlighting the extent of his racist, anti-Semitic, "alt-right" hatemongering history.

The segment, which was posted on NBC29’s website on October 11, was accompanied by an article that focused on Spencer's plans to continue leading hate rallies in Charlottesville, a community that fell victim to hate during the August 12 Unite the Right rally where a counter-protester was killed. Spencer used the local platform to advertise his white supremacist rallies, “vowing to come back to Charlottesville with smaller unannounced rallies" "until he gets a seat at the table.” The segment failed to mention that counter-protester Heather Heyer was killed by a white supremacist at the August 12 Unite the Right rally which Spencer headlined.

The report did more to promote Spencer’s white nationalist think tank the National Policy Institute than it did to hold him accountable as a racist extremist and the self-proclaimed founder of the “alt-right.”

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Spencer has advocated the “peaceful ethnic cleansing” of minorities, called Martin Luther King Jr. a “fraud and degenerate”, and said that immigration is the “last stand” for white Americans. Spencer also claims that a ban on Muslims in Europe and the United States “must” be done and even likened homosexuality to a “birth defect.”

Yet for some reason, this local media outlet still decided to give Spencer an uncritical platform. From the October 11 edition of NBC29’s HD News:

HENRY GRAFF: Richard Spencer says he believes “history chose Charlottesville” but obviously going to UVA, living here after graduating, were also factors to bringing that fight here. Spencer says he admired that Robert E. Lee statue in that park when he lived here and the debate over that statue actually gave him an opportunity here which Spencer seized.

[BEGIN SEGMENT]

RICHARD SPENCER: We are not going away.

GRAFF: A stern warning from the leader of the National Policy Institute. White nationalist Richard Spencer says this scene –

PROTESTERS: The south with rise again!

GRAFF: -- Of flames and fury

PROTESTERS: You will not replace us!

GRAFF: Marching through the streets of Charlottesville will be repeated.

[…]

GRAFF: Spencer claims his views of white identity are being threatened and until he gets a seat at the table, Spencer and others are vowing to come back to Charlottesville with smaller unannounced rallies like the one on Saturday night.

SPENCER: That event was tightly coordinated. It was -- everyone was operating on a need to know basis. It was an operation.

GRAFF: Richard Spencer says interest has grown in the National Policy Institute located here in Alexandria since the events of August 12 in Charlottesville. While he couldn’t provide us specific numbers, he does say his message is now reaching a much larger audience.

SPENCER: At some point, one can’t stifle any idea whose time has come.

GRAFF: Spencer admits the torch rallies are meant to make a splash, give them an image, and communicate a message through the media who cover it. And just like his warning about coming back, Spencer feels just as confident about moving his message forward.

SPENCER: They’re going to lose because I understand how to play this game and I’ll win.

[END SEGMENT]

GRAFF: When pressed, Spencer says torches he believes are not intimidating, in fact he actually described them to me as “beautiful, magical, and mystical.” He says they are not planning any more August 12th style rallies mainly because these smaller pop up torch rallies are very effective in getting his message across and not drawing too much attention from counter demonstrators.

STEVE RAPPAPORT: Let’s talk about his last comment there, about this is a game, he’s going to win. A lot of people will argue it’s more than a game and he knows his legal rights obviously but he’s also said he knows what he’s doing in terms of what will incite people, what will anger people, what will get people going and emotions boiling.

During the so-called “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, VA, last week -- where three people were killed and dozens of others were injured -- white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups attacked LGBTQ people in addition to other minority and marginalized populations, including by chanting “Fuck you, faggots.” These groups and media outlets have a long history of engaging in anti-LGBTQ extremism, including suggesting that LGBTQ people be “cured” through “rational medical treatment” and calling for arresting and trying LGBTQ activists for “treason.”

White supremacists have been engaging in violent and racist protests this weekend in Charlottesville, VA. President Donald Trump responded to the violence by issuing a generic condemnation of problems "on many sides" and declining to specifically call out white supremacists. Trump's response fits a pattern: He has repeatedly enabled and emboldened the white nationalist movement and its racist media figures throughout his political rise.

White supremacists and “alt right” figures have been gathering in Charlottesville for a “Unite the Right” rally “to protest the planned removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.” The rally features white nationalist media figures such as Richard Spencer and Mike Enoch and was organized by racist writer Jason Kessler, who has written for The Daily Caller.

Former KKK leader David Duke, who is attending the protest, said today that the Charlottesville protests are an indication that “we are going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump. That’s what we believed in, that’s why we voted for Donald Trump.”

Media Matters has documented how Trump has engaged in a disturbing courtship with the racist white nationalist movement and its media figures:

Since Trump was elected in November, white nationalists have cheered the president’s rhetoric and the administration’s moves on appointing Stephen Bannon to a senior position; making Jeff Sessions the attorney general; attempting to ban people from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the United States; and manyothers. They have also praised White House adviser Stephen Miller for his anti-immigrant rhetoric and former White House press secretary Sean Spicer for his April comments about the Holocaust.

Trump today tweeted of Charlottesville:

We ALL must be united & condemn all that hate stands for. There is no place for this kind of violence in America. Lets come together as one!

Trump later gave a speech in New Jersey that addressed the protests and said, "We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence, on many sides." Numerous reporters and commenators criticized Trump for failing to actually call out white supremacism and speaking in generalities. They have also noted that Trump has helped enable the white nationalists in Charlottesville. Here is a sampling (Note: This section has been updated with additional tweets.):

To be clear: as a nazi rally turns deadly, the president devotes a few sentences to it, blaming "many sides," and then changes the topic.

White Nationalist Leaders Are Supporting Trump And See Him As Their “Last Stand”

Associated Press: “Experts Say White Supremacists See Trump As 'Last Stand.'” The Associated Press reported that “Trump and his campaign are expressing ideas similar to those espoused by white supremacists, legal, media and civil rights experts say. In addition, the experts said Wednesday, white supremacists are using the 2016 presidential elections to attempt to control the culture of politics.” From the piece:

Angelo Carusone, executive vice president of Media Matters for America, a liberal advocacy group, noted that Trump has retweeted posts from white supremacist accounts on Twitter.

Twitter is Trump's biggest microphone, and his rhetoric correlates with some of the beliefs of white supremacy organizations and communities, Carusone said.

Sophie Bjork-James, a Vanderbilt University lecturer and expert in white supremacist social movements, said white nationalists are attempting to increase their numbers through Trump's campaign. [The Associated Press, 8/11/16]

David Duke: “Voting Against Donald Trump At This Point Is Really Treason To Your Heritage.” David Duke is a white supremacist radio host and former Ku Klux Klan wizard. He is currently running for the U.S. Senate and cited Trump as an inspiration for his run. [BuzzFeed, 2/25/16; Media Matters, 3/1/16, 7/22/16]

“Pro-White” Radio Host James Edwards: "Trump Will Be The First Republican Nominee That I Have Ever Voted For." James Edwards is the host of the “pro-white” radio program The Political Cesspool. Edwards is a David Duke acolyte and he “has probably done more than any of his contemporaries on the American radical right to publicly promote neo-Nazis, Holocaust deniers, raging anti-Semites and other extremists," according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Edwards has written: “For blacks in the Americas, slavery is the greatest thing that ever happened to them. Unfortunately, it's the worst thing that ever happened to white Americans”; “MLK's dream is our nightmare”; and “Interracial sex is white genocide.” [Media Matters, 7/24/16; Southern Poverty Law Center, accessed 8/18/16]

Hate Publication Leader Kevin MacDonald: "Trump Is Saying What White Americans Have Been Actually Thinking For A Very Long Time." The Southern Poverty Law Center described Kevin MacDonald as “the neo-Nazi movement's favorite academic” who “published a trilogy that supposedly ‘proves’ that Jews are genetically driven to destroy Western societies.” [Southern Poverty Law Center, accessed 8/18/16; Media Matters,8/27/15]

Neo-Nazi Site Daily Stormer: "Vote For The First Time In Our Lives For The One Man Who Actually Represents Our Interests." The Daily Stormer is a neo-Nazi website headed by Andrew Anglin that has endorsed Trump and is enthusiastically supporting his campaign. The website regularly defends Adolf Hitler, attacks “kikes,” and has a section documenting the purported “Jewish Problem.” [Media Matters, 8/27/15]

Hate Group Leader Jared Taylor:"Trump May Be The Last Hope For A President Who Would Be Good For White People." The Southern Poverty Law Center writes that Taylor “is the founder of the New Century Foundation and edits its American Renaissance magazine, which, despite its pseudo-academic polish, regularly publishes proponents of eugenics and blatant anti-black and anti-Latino racists. Taylor also hosts a conference every other year where racist intellectuals rub shoulders with Klansmen, neo-Nazis and other white supremacists.” [Southern Poverty Law Center, accessed 8/18/16; Media Matters, 8/27/15]

Hate Group Leader Richard Spencer: “Trump Thinks Like Me. … Do You Think It's A Coincidence That Everybody Like Me Loves Trump And Supports Him?” Richard Spencer is the head of the white nationalist National Policy Institute. The Associated Press reported that Spencer “matter-of-factly called for removing African-Americans, Hispanics and Jews from the United States” while at the Republican National Convention. [Southern Poverty Law Center, accessed 8/18/16; The Associated Press, 7/25/16]

Stormfront Founder Don Black: “We Are All Pulling For Him, Voting For Him If We Can.” The Southern Poverty Law Center wrote that Black is a “former Klan state leader and long-time white supremacist” who created “Stormfront.org, the first major Internet hate site.” [BuzzFeed, 3/25/16; Southern Poverty Law Center, accessed 8/18/16]

White Nationalist Political Party Leader William Johnson: “I Urge You To Vote For Donald Trump.” William Daniel Johnson heads the American Freedom Party and “has called for a whites-only United States and the deportation of other races and ethnicities.” He also founded the pro-Trump group American National Super PAC, was initially selected as a Trump convention delegate, and issued pro-Trump robocalls in key primary states. [The Washington Post, 5/11/16; Talking Points Memo, 1/9/16]

White Nationalists Have Praised Trump And His Actions Throughout The Campaign

Early In Primary Campaign, White Nationalists Praised Trump’s Stance On Immigration. Trump’s stance on immigration drew white nationalists to his campaign during the early months of the Republican primary. They said Trump was "doing the Lord's work," remarked that his plan was the "most explicit any presidential candidate has ever been," and said Trump could halt "the speed with which whites are reduced to a minority." [Media Matters, 8/27/15]

White Nationalist Media Backed Trump's Anti-Muslim Plan. White nationalists praised Trump’s plan "for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on." They called Trump's proposal "so wonderful" and "100% reasonable" because Muslims purportedly provide "absolutely nothing of value to this once-great nation." [Media Matters, 12/8/15]

Trump’s White Nationalist Backers Applauded His Racist Attacks On Federal Judge. White nationalists praised Trump’s racist attacks on Judge Gonzalo Curiel for purportedly being biased because “he’s a Mexican.” They called the judge a “terrorist spic,” claimed “Diversity is not strength, and it above all is not an impartial judiciary,” said the attacks against Trump are because of “Jewish manipulation,” and celebrated that Trump “is waking up” white Americans “from their collective hypnosis.” [Media Matters, 6/7/16]

White Nationalists Hailed Trump For “Stunning” Anti-Semitic Tweet. White nationalist leaders praised Trump for tweeting an anti-Semitic image attacking Hillary Clinton. They wrote that the tweet represented “dog-whistling by The Leader” about “filthy Jew terrorists,” proof that “Trump is not backing down,” and that it’s “Nice to see Mr. Trump slipping some 'Red Pills' to the American people.” [Media Matters, 7/5/16]

White Nationalists Praised Trump’s Convention. White nationalists praised Trump and the 2016 Republican National Convention. They celebrated that their tweets were featured in the convention hall, defended Melania Trump’s plagiarism from attacks by “the filthy Jews,” and hailed that the Republican Party “is becoming the de facto white party.” They also praised Trump’s convention speech, stating that they “couldn't have said it better” and “couldn’t be happier”; and said that Trump was focusing on the “negative effects” of immigration and using “codewords” that appeal to whites. [Media Matters, 7/20/16, 7/22/16]

White Nationalists Rejoiced At Trump’s Hiring Of Breitbart News Chief Stephen Bannon. The Southern Poverty Law Center noted that under Bannon, Breitbart.com “has undergone a noticeable shift toward embracing ideas on the extremist fringe of the conservative right. Racist ideas. Anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant ideas.” The Daily Beast similarly wrote that “Bannon did a lot to normalize the racist, anti-Semitic world of the alt right.” VDare’s Peter Brimelow praised Bannon’s hiring in the Daily Beast, saying that “Breitbart emerged as a nationalist site and done great stuff on immigration in particular.” Richard Spencer also approved of the hiring, stating, “Breitbart has elective affinities with the Alt Right, and the Alt Right has clearly influenced Breitbart.” The Daily Stormer’s Andrew Anglin supported Bannon’s hiring, stating that “Breitbart has, over the last year, gone from Fox News-style cuckism to full-on Stormer-tier on most issues (not the Jews, of course).” [Southern Poverty Law Center, 4/28/16, Daily Beast, 8/17/16; Daily Stormer, 8/18/16]

White Nationalists Loved Trump’s “Nazi” Closing Ad Because It “Blasts” The “Evil Jews.” White nationalists praised Trump’s closing campaign ad, which was criticized by the Anti-Defamation League, as “absolutely fantastic” because it shows that Jewish people are “eating away at the flesh of this once-great nation.” [Media Matters, 11/7/16]

White Nationalists Cheered August Immigration Speech By Trump. On August 31, Trump delivered a speech about immigration in Arizona. The speech was hailed by white nationalists as a “Hell of a speech” and “excellent.” [Media Matters, 8/31/16]

White Nationalists Were Thrilled With Speech That Was Packed With Anti-Semitic Themes. Trump delivered an October speech in Florida that was heavily criticized for trafficking in anti-Semitic themes. White nationalists praised the contents of Trump’s “incredible” speech because it attacked “Jewish radicals” and managed “to channel Goebbels.” [Media Matters, 10/14/16]

White Nationalists Praised Donald Trump Jr. For Actions During Campaign. During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump Jr. made a “gas chamber” reference, retweeted an anti-Semitic author, and compared Syrian refugees to Skittles. Trump Jr.’s actions endeared him to neo-Nazi websites, which have celebrated Trump's son for having “hit a nerve” with the “Jew Media” and for indicating that “a part of him has been with us since day one.” [Media Matters, 9/20/16]

Trump And His Campaign Have Had Disturbing Interactions With White Nationalists

Trump Has Repeatedly Retweeted White Supremacist Accounts. The New York Times wrote of Trump’s penchant for promoting white nationalists on Twitter:

But on the flatlands of social media, the border between Mr. Trump and white supremacists easily blurs. He has retweeted supportive messages from racist or nationalist Twitter accounts to his nine million followers. Last fall, he retweeted a graphic with fictitious crime statistics claiming that 81 percent of white homicide victims in 2015 were killed by blacks. (No such statistic was available for 2015 at the time; the actual figure for 2014 was 15 percent, according to the F.B.I.)

In January and February he retweeted messages from a user with the handle @WhiteGenocideTM, whose profile picture is of George Lincoln Rockwell, the founder of the American Nazi Party. A couple of days later, in quick succession, he retweeted two more accounts featuring white nationalist or Nazi themes. Mr. Trump deleted one of the retweets, but white supremacists saw more than a twitch of the thumb. “Our Glorious Leader and ULTIMATE SAVIOR has gone full wink-wink-wink to his most aggressive supporters,” Mr. Anglin wrote on The Daily Stormer.

In fact, Mr. Trump’s Twitter presence is tightly interwoven with hordes of mostly anonymous accounts trafficking in racist and anti-Semitic attacks. When Little Bird, a social media data mining company, analyzed a week of Mr. Trump’s Twitter activity, it found that almost 30 percent of the accounts Mr. Trump retweeted in turn followed one or more of 50 popular self-identified white nationalist accounts. [The New York Times, 7/14/16]

Trump Repeatedly Refused To Denounce David Duke. Trump created an uproar when he repeatedly refused to disavow David Duke for supporting his campaign. Trump later bizarrely blamed a “bad earpiece” for failing to denounce Duke during the interview. [CNN.com, 2/29/16; Washington Examiner, 2/29/16]

Trump Refused To Denounce Neo-Nazi Supporters Who Threatened Reporter. During a May interview, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked Trump if he would denounce anti-Semitic death threats against a reporter who wrote a profile of Melania Trump. Trump refused to condemn the threats, saying he was unaware of them and adding, “I don’t have a message to the fans. A woman wrote a article that was inaccurate.” [Media Matters, 5/6/16]

Trump Selected White Nationalist Leader As Delegate. As Mother Jones noted, the Trump campaign selected “William Johnson, one of the country's most prominent white nationalists,” as a convention delegate from California. Johnson later resigned following criticism, and the Trump campaign blamed a "database error" on the selection. [Mother Jones, 5/10/16]

Trump Campaign Was Forced To Return Donation From Johnson. The Trump campaign accepted a $250 donation in September from Johnson and returned it after Media Matters and People for the American Way criticized Trump. [Media Matters, 3/11/16]

Trump Adviser And GOP Congressmen Gave Pro-Trump Interviews To White Nationalist Radio Host James Edwards At The RNC. Several members of Congress and Trump campaign official Gary Berntsen gave pro-Trump interviews to James Edwards and his “pro-white” radio show The Political Cesspool during the Republican National Convention. [Media Matters, 7/24/16]

Trump Campaign Gave Press Credentials To James Edwards. Trump's campaign gave press credentials to Edwards and The Political Cesspool to cover a Tennessee rally in February. [Media Matters, 3/1/16]

Donald Trump Jr. Gave Interview To James Edwards. Donald Trump Jr. gave an interview to white nationalist leader James Edwards. The interview aired on the Liberty RoundTable, which is hosted by Edwards’ syndicator and guest host Sam Bushman. Edwards appeared on the program as a guest and questioner. The Trump campaign later claimed they were not aware of Edwards’ views; Edwards hit back at the campaign by claiming that the interview happened because "a press agency that's scheduling interviews for" Trump Jr. reached out to him. [Media Matters, 3/3/16]

Trump’s Convention Displayed Tweets From White Nationalist Accounts. The Republican National Convention displayed tweets from white nationalist accounts on its ticker. The tweets came from the accounts “@Western_Triumph” and VDare.com. [Time, 7/22/16]

Trump Adviser Retweeted An Anti-Semitic Message. Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who is advising Trump’s campaign and was reportedly considered as a potential running mate, shared a tweet that read, "Not anymore, Jews. Not Anymore." Flynn later apologized, claiming it “was a mistake.” [CNN.com, 7/24/16]

Trump Surrogates Promoted Campaign In Interview With Neo-Nazi. Diamond and Silk, two YouTube personalities who serve as surrogates for Donald Trump's presidential campaign, promoted his candidacy in an interview with neo-Nazi and Trump supporter John Friend. Friend believes the Holocaust is "one of the most egregious and outrageous falsehoods ever perpetrated," "Jews Did 9/11," and Adolf Hitler was "the greatest thing that's happened to Western civilization." [Media Matters, 3/24/16]

Donald Trump Jr. Retweeted Anti-Semitic Author Kevin MacDonald. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency noted that Trump Jr. in August “retweeted an attack on Hillary Clinton by Kevin MacDonald, a psychologist notorious for his theories of Jewish manipulation and control. The Aug. 29 tweet itself had nothing to do with Jews or the theories that have made MacDonald popular among Holocaust deniers. In it, MacDonald referred to Clinton’s interactions as secretary of state with UBS, a Swiss bank that also has contributed to the Clinton Foundation.” [Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 9/1/16]

Trump Senior Adviser Promoted Anti-Semitic Hate Site’s Trump Endorsement. A.J. Delgado, a senior campaign adviser, retweeted a Trump endorsement from anti-Semitic website The Right Stuff in October. The Right Stuff tweeted: “At this point anyone not insane enough to want a war with Russia should vote Trump.” The tweet prior to the message that Delgado retweeted was an anti-Semitic attack on Republican strategist Dan Senor. [Media Matters, 10/11/16]

Trump Campaign Has Accepted Donations From Prominent White Nationalist Leader William Johnson. The Trump campaign accepted a $250 donation in September 2015 from Johnson and returned it after Media Matters and People for the American Way criticized Trump. However, Johnson subsequently donated more money to the Trump campaign that reportedly has not been returned. The Daily Beast reported in October 2016:

According to FEC filings, Johnson contributed $1,000 on June 22, 2016 and an additional $500 on June 28. Both of these have yet to refunded according to the filings.

When asked about the contributions, Johnson told The Daily Beast he thought had given even more than the documented amount.

“I donated more than $1,500,” he said in an email. “I think I am near the max of $2,500. I paid by credit card and I don't keep my personal accounts, so I don’t know for sure, but I have given on many occasions.” [Media Matters, 3/11/16; The Daily Beast, 10/31/16]

White Nationalists Say Trump Has Helped Them Grow Their Movement

Politico: “White Supremacist Groups See Trump Bump.” Politico reported in December of Trump and white supremacists:

The Ku Klux Klan is using Donald Trump as a talking point in its outreach efforts. Stormfront, the most prominent American white supremacist website, is upgrading its servers in part to cope with a Trump traffic spike. And former Louisiana Rep. David Duke reports that the businessman has given more Americans cover to speak out loud about white nationalism than at any time since his own political campaigns in the 1990s.

As hate group monitors at the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League warn that Trump’s rhetoric is conducive to anti-Muslim violence, white nationalist leaders are capitalizing on his candidacy to invigorate and expand their movement.

“Demoralization has been the biggest enemy and Trump is changing all that,” said Stormfront founder Don Black, who reports additional listeners and call volume to his phone-in radio show, in addition to the site’s traffic bump. Black predicts that the white nationalist forces set in motion by Trump will be a legacy that outlives the businessman’s political career. “He’s certainly creating a movement that will continue independently of him even if he does fold at some point.” [Politico, 12/10/15]

Politico: Experts Say “Trump Is Energizing Hate Groups And Creating An Atmosphere Likely To Lead To More Violence Against American Muslims.”

Meanwhile, analysts from the two leading organizations that track violence against minority groups say Trump is energizing hate groups and creating an atmosphere likely to lead to more violence against American Muslims.

According to experts at the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center who monitor hate groups and anti-Muslim sentiment, Trump’s call on Monday to halt the entrance of Muslims to the United States is driving online chatter among white supremacists and is likely to inspire violence against Muslims. [Politico, 12/10/15]

N.Y. Times: “Trump Has Galvanized The Otherwise Marginal World Of Avowed White Nationalists.” The New York Times wrote in July:

Some are elated by the turn. In making the explicit assertion of white identity and grievance more widespread, Mr. Trump has galvanized the otherwise marginal world of avowed white nationalists and self-described “race realists.” They hail him as a fellow traveler who has driven millions of white Americans toward an intuitive embrace of their ideals: that race should matter as much to white people as it does to everyone else. He has freed Americans, those activists say, to say what they really believe. [The New York Times, 7/13/16]

White nationalists are hailing Donald Trump’s elevation to presumptive Republican presidential nominee, while also trying to boost their own political profiles and activity.

Although Mr. Trump has spurned these extreme groups’ support, the level of interest within them for the White House candidate rivals that for segregationist George Wallace, who won five states in the 1968 election, and for conservative Republican Pat Buchanan, who denounced multiculturalism in the 1990s.

Mr. Trump is being heralded by these groups for his proposals to bar Muslim immigrants, deport millions of people living illegally in the U.S., and build a wall along the southern border. [The Wall Street Journal, 5/17/16]

Daily News: “Trump’s Racist Rhetoric Emboldens White Supremacist Groups, Neo-Nazis Spouting Hate On The Internet.” New York Daily News reported in December that Trump’s “decision to push divisive rhetoric and policy has opened the door for an array of white supremacy groups, that suddenly feel emboldened and legitimized by Trump’s hateful bombast, to rejoin the national conversation.” [New York Daily News, 12/10/15]

Rachel Pendergraft — the national organizer for the Knights Party, a standard-bearer for the Ku Klux Klan — told The Washington Post that the KKK, for one, has a new conversation starter at its disposal.

You might call it a “Trump card.”

It involves, say, walking into a coffee shop or sitting on a train while carrying a newspaper with a Donald Trump headline. The Republican presidential candidate, Pendergraft told The Post, has become a great outreach tool, providing separatists with an easy way to start a conversation about issues that are important to the dying white supremacist movement. [The Washington Post, 12/21/15]

Anti-Defamation League: “Trump’s Rhetoric Resonates With White Supremacists.”The New York Times wrote in July:

“Trump’s rhetoric resonates with white supremacists,” said Joanna Mendelson, an investigative researcher with the Center on Extremism, a branch of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

“They’ve been essentially energized about Trump’s candidacy, and they’ve been very vocal about their support of Trump and his policies on immigration and globalism,” Mendelson said.

In February, the ADL published a list of 10 prominent white supremacists who actively support Trump. Then, in April, it urged the candidate to drop the phrase “America First” as a campaign slogan, pointing out it had been used by Charles Lindbergh, a prominent Nazi sympathizer, in the 1940s. [The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, 6/2/16]

White Nationalists Are Using Trump’s Campaign For Fundraising. White nationalist websites like VDare.com and American Renaissance have been using Trump’s candidacy to raise money. Fundraising solicitations hail Trump for spurring "unprecedented interest in" white nationalism and putting their ideas "firmly in the mainstream." [Media Matters, 1/12/16]

Conservative media outlets and personalities, along with anti-LGBTQ hate groups, applauded President Donald Trump’s Twitter announcement that he will be banning transgender people from serving in the U.S. armed forces because the military “cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.”

A Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate who was backed by, and affiliated with, segments of the “alt-right” media nearly won the state’s June 13 gubernatorial primary.

Corey Stewart, chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors, narrowly lost to front-runner Ed Gillespie, former chairman of Republican National Committee (RNC), by only slightly more than a percentage point.

After the close primary election, “alt-right” figures cheered Stewart’s near-upset. Cernovich tweeted that the result showed “GOP globalists” that they're “all going to have primary challengers.” He also said that Stewart “showed them what one man can do with his populist revolution.” Another “alt-right”-affiliated troll, Jack Posobiec, tweeted, “Gillespie outspent Stewart 5-to-1 and barely won the race. Take note, Establishment.” VDare, another “alt-right”-connected outlet which frequently publishes articles written by white nationalists, claimed Stewart’s “heroic effort” against “useless consultantcuck Ed Gillespie” showed “nationalism lives.”

Sweden is known as a bastion of progressive values and policies, but underneath the dominant ideology, there is a motivated, well-connected nativist movement that has existed for decades and is now re-emerging, armed with fake news.

With a population of just under 10 million, Sweden is a small, historically ethnically homogenous country that in recent years has accepted the largest number of asylum seekers per capita of any European nation. Sweden’s white nationalists, once relegated to the fringe, have been re-energized by a global so-called populistmovement and a relatively progressive immigration policy that is anathema to their agenda. And there are signs that they may be succeeding in their efforts. Xenophobic hate crimes are up, stricter immigration policies have been imposed, and Sweden Democrats, the far-right political party, with ties to neo-Nazism is, for the first time ever, polling as the second most popular party in the country. To top it off, there is evidence that the media discourse on immigration has taken a dark turn to portray migrants “as a problem,” and fake news is on the rise.

Enter the Swedish “alt-right,” a movement that sees progressivism as having been imported into Swedish society as an experiment in cultural Marxism and views Sweden’s relatively small size and homogeneity as having contributed to a sort of "unitarian zeitgeist" of liberal thought.* The members of this movement see it as a fight to “diversify” the Swedish media landscape while promoting a decidedly racist agenda. Together, these attributes have created an environment ripe for the spread of “alt-right” ideas, and the most well-known white nationalist of the American "alt-right" has taken notice.

Richard Spencer, president of the white nationalist “think tank” the National Policy Institute (NPI), after having been recently alienated from a movement he named, is looking for legitimacy in a country he has dubbed “the most alt-right.” According to BuzzFeed, Spencer recently began a partnership with two Swedish “alt-right” outlets, Arktos Media, a publishing house that prints white nationalist literature in English, and Red Ice, a Swedish white nationalist video and podcast platform that often features international guests. The partnership, the AltRight Corporation, which has been called an attempt at a “more ideological Breitbart,” also has its own website and, until May 23, also had its own podcast, AltRight Radio. Soundcloud has since banned the podcast for violating its hate speech policy. But this movement is not confined to the internet. For the past nine years, Sweden has hosted an “alt-right conference” which is attended by members and sympathizers from all over the world. One prominent American “alt-right” figure (whose name was not divulged) told AltRight.com’s Daniel Friberg that Sweden’s annual alt-right conference was the most “well-attended” he’d been to and, notably, the "most radical," too.*

Migrant crime is a favorite topic of the “alt-right” in Sweden, in part because the outlets that promote this content know they’re speaking to an audience favorable to their ideological agenda, not facts. (Media Matters previously documented Breitbart's use of a racist meme to categorize stories about migrant crime in Sweden, most of which also had little basis in reality). Journalists know this is happening but remain ill-equipped to respond to it. A recent study found that eight out of 10 Swedes believe fake news is altering their “perception of basic facts.” Sweden has acknowledged the rise of “inaccurate information” and, in March, the country’s prime minister announced a plan to combat fake news ahead of Sweden’s 2018 general election. Yet, Sweden remains vulnerable to fake news and, as the education minister admits, there is “some naivety when it comes to the information society.” Often the flow of misinformation looks something like this: A Swedish or British tabloid reports on a study or crime with a sensational headline and few details or context; “alt-right” or far-right outlets cite the original source but add new details to further sensationalize the story; these outlets promote each other to amplify the story; and eventually the story makes its way to a more mainstream news outlet. Sometimes, the news that a story is false makes its way back to Swedish media, but by then, the damage is already done.

Last year, American film producer Ami Horowitz made a deceptively edited film rife with false claims about migrant crime in Sweden. In February of this year, after having been promoted by U.K. tabloid the Daily Mail and conspiracy theorist website Infowars, he was invited for an interview with Fox’s Tucker Carlson, not oncebut twice, and one of the segments was later cited by President Trump as the impetus for his fact-free suggestion that something “was happening last night” in Sweden, which he couched amid discussion of terror-hit cities. The interview received so much attention that the Swedish police and embassy pushed back, one Swedish newspaper responded by fact-checking each of Horowitz’s assertions, and another criticized Trump’s complicity in the “Sweden-bashing by the hard-core American right.” But how equipped is Sweden to deal with xenophobic fake news that doesn’t reach the pedestal of the president of the United States, and, thus, does not grab international attention?

In another, more recent example, Swedish tabloid Dagens Nyheter published a study titled, "Young Men Who Commit Shootings Often Have A Foreign Background," which found that 90 out of 100 shooting suspects had at least one foreign-born parent. Of course, these findings are concerning, but a closer look illustrates problems that are not unique to Sweden: Unemployment, lack of educational opportunities, and mental illness were all identified by experts as important contributing factors to gun violence. It is also worth noting that almost half of the individuals counted in this study were merely suspected, not convicted, of perpetrating these crimes. Of course, this context was missing from the misleadingly titled article that notorious Islamophobe Virginia Hale later wrote for Breitbart. Alex Jones’ Infowars also engaged with the story, citing the Swedish fakenewspurveyor and “alt-right” outlet Fria Tider (which has been called the "Breitbart of Sweden"*) in its report, with an even more misleading headline: “SWEDEN: MIGRANTS RESPONSIBLE FOR 90% OF SHOOTINGS.” Both articles used the opportunity to push debunked claims about crime in Sweden.

Though they’re false, these claims are repeated so often that they begin to exist as facts. For example, the fact-checking website Snopes has debunked many stories on Sweden and even issued a three-part series debunking the most common misleading narratives on Swedish migrant crime. But the narratives persist. There are a few reasons for this. It’s now widely known that sensational headlines get more clicks, and the effect is especially heightened when they play on a person’s deep-seated emotions like anger and anxiety. Sweden has not become the “rape capital of Europe,” but real or imagined, Sweden’s historically liberal refugee admissions policy has created enough tension to make people vulnerable to fake news about the population. Another universal reason for the rise of fake news, as it relates to Sweden, is disaffection from mainstream outlets and increasing preference for alternative sources. A 2016 study in Sweden found half of media consumers get their news from sources other than Sweden’s traditional news sources and around 20 percent have “no confidence” in them.

There are uniquely Swedish reasons for why the country is susceptible to fake news. These include the well-intentioned ways crime is defined and reported and the language barriers to understanding Swedish news. For instance, according to a late 2015 internal memo, Swedish police were instructed not to report externally the ethnic or national origin of suspected criminals in order not to appear racist. The decision, while admirable and also not unique to Sweden, has raised suspicion. Manyfar-rightoutlets perceived the move as an attempted cover-up, and the controversy became so big that the Swedish government responded to the contention. Another Swedish practice that has unintentionally created the illusion of increased crime is the way Sweden defines and categorizes crime and the culture around crime reporting. For example, Sweden defines sexual assault much more broadly than the U.S. and other European countries do, and records every single offense as a separate crime, even if they are committed by the same perpetrator. The country has also created a culture in which victims are encouraged to report crimes rather than stigmatized. Sweden’s open and progressive crime reporting practices, when viewed comparatively, allow fake news purveyors to speculate on a suspected criminal’s ethnic background with impunity, as well as manufacture an inflated perception of criminality.

From the reader’s perspective, the fact that most “alt-right” outlets and fake news purveyors link to Swedish language news stories in order to validate their claims forces even the most critical reader to either know Swedish or rely on rough translations to discern the validity of the source. Knowing this, outlets can wrongly attribute or incorrectly paraphrase quotations from Swedish sources that advance their narrative without fear of retribution.

The intersection of fake news and the “alt-right” is a particularly troubling one. It is ever-shifting, beholden neither to facts nor ideology and, in the realm of the internet, almost totally unaccountable. What we do know is that its adherents are white men who are targetingeveryoneelse, that it’s not going away, and that we must remain vigilant. Sweden is the favorite target of the American “alt-right” as it expands to Europe, desperately looking for legitimacy, and armed with total lies.

*These quotations were taken from the now-deleted AltRight Radio podcast, "Eurocentric #2: Killing Captain Sweden."

White nationalists and neo-Nazis praised President Donald Trump for asking “why was there the Civil War” and why “could that one not have been worked out.” They argued that Trump was “right,” that the Civil War did not advance “the White race and our shared civilization,” and that the remarks were “‘offensive’ only to those who actively enjoy white people being killed.” Many white nationalists supported Trump during the campaign and have previously praised him for other remarks.